“Oh look.” Said the man with the least wear on their clothing. If Xiao had to wager a guess he would be the ringleader. “We have a merchant who fancies himself a hero. We should teach this fool a lesson. Right men?”

Xiao fell roughly into the dirt road, his pack thankfully not spilling any of his goods. He huffed, annoyed at the group of thugs slowly encircling him. They claimed to be from the Lobong Gubat Guild in an attempt to garner fear by association.

“Literally, could you not have had anything better to do?” Xiao asked them. Ignoring the jeers and insults thrown at him. ‘I definitely need to gather information about the area I’m in. It’d be a bad idea to get mixed up in the wrong crowd due to ignorance.’

Looking at the motley crew corralling him in a semi-circle, Xiao slightly spread his feet apart his posture exuding a lackadaisical appearance, hands inside his pockets to hide his shaky hands. He weighed his options between fleeing with his tail tucked behind him or fighting them with his nonexistent skills. 

“Hand over your bag!” The leader demanded, unsheathing his sword, a bolo. The steel glinted in the sunlight, managing to look menacing under the fine weather. Xiao decided to play along, carefully removing it from his back and moving it in front of him. In that split-second decision, Xiao decided to crouch down, opening the bag, and what could only be described as a landslide of food and flowing drinks engulfed the group. Xiao stared at the scene in disbelief and to his bag and back again. Eventually, he snapped back to his senses, though not without a cautious gaze toward the bag that he carried on his back. ‘It was a literal cornucopia ability as described in the pamphlet.’ 

Though as he kicked a nearby mango towards the large heap of food, he spotted them slowly dissolving into specks of dead mana. ‘One of the drawbacks of the cornucopia ability is that if the food or drink was not immediately consumed then it would disappear. The more there was the faster it decayed. But creating more complex food recipes from the raw ingredients from the cornucopia did have an increase in physical and magical capabilities.’

Xiao let out a laborious yawn. His energy sapped away from him. ‘It also takes away my energy. Luckily I didn’t pass out but still, I need to exercise more.’ Despite his fatigue he briskly ran away, hoping to make a considerable distance between himself and those criminals. He wiped the sweat from his brow, his pale skin red from the sunlight. He spotted a small hill and a large Balete tree, an exhausted sigh of relief overcame him as he finally managed to sit down and rest.

He contemplated not cooking a meal and using the provided rations but with the fine weather and light breeze, it’d be a shame to not have a warm meal and good tea to go with the atmosphere. He decided to make Xiǎolóngbāo and was glad he already had leftover dough from his experimentations with the local produce. He set up his gas stove and the pot with some water to pre-heat while he soaked the bamboo baskets in cool water for 5 minutes to remove the oils and odor. While doing that he decided to use the cornucopia to have aspic as he hadn’t had the opportunity to visit the local butchers and they usually take 4 hours or so to make, time he didn’t have. He also got lean meat and minced them finely, mixing them with wagyu fat. He eyeballed the amount of Shaoxing rice wine and Light soy sauce. Finally adding some salt and sugar to taste.

Letting the minced meat marinate to the side, he chopped scallions, minced ginger, and the aspic to mix well with the minced meat later. He added five-spice powder and Sichuan powder. Mixing them all together to complete the filling.

He got a new chopping board and dusted it with flour so that he could flatten the dough there and added the filling. He filled the bamboo baskets and left them on the stove to steam. He didn’t want to drink tea, so soybean milk would have to do. He spruced up the milk he got from the cornucopia by adding milk chocolate ice cubes, chocolate syrup, and a small shot of liquified dark chocolate. And for fun, he also added tiramisu-flavored wafer sticks.

Thankful for the magic item ensuring it wouldn’t melt, he decided to safely cover it from the elements and took a nap. Enjoying the sound of the gently swaying leaves and birds chirping that lulled him to sleep. Though he didn’t get to enjoy the bliss of sleep for too long as a large knocking sound beside him woke him up. He turned his head towards the sound and saw a man drinking, sitting cross-legged on a large root of the Balete tree. He had sun-kissed skin, golden eyes, and long silky black hair neatly tied into a ponytail. 

“Nice to meet you again stranger!” he greeted in between slurping his drink. Xiao looked at him confused and the stranger gave further clarification. “We met in the forest? I was doing a task there and finished early so I decided to head back to the capital. I saw you napping in the Millenium Tree so…” His sentence trailed off, continuing to slurp the drink. “Also, thanks for this drink! I don’t really like soybean, it’s a bit too eastern for my taste but I love the fusion of chocolate and this weird dessert stick you put in.”

Xiao bit his lip, trying to control his anger. He let out a deep sigh, counting numbers to try to let go of his anger. “That was my drink. Not yours to take.” Xiao put a hand to his face, “Whatever, I can make another one. It’s fortunately easy.” He also removed the steamer baskets from the stove, letting them cool for a bit.  The man peered over his shoulder, curiosity shining through. “What are you making?”

“Xiǎolóngbāo, it’s food from my home country.”

“Can I try some?”

“Why would I share my food when I don’t even know your name.” The man smirked, scooting over to Xiao to stick his hand out for Xiao to shake.

“My name’s Basilio, I do errands for people in exchange for something of equal value. A Quid pro quo basically.” 

‘Considering that the man’s aura screams intimidating and scary, those errands probably are more in line with mercenary work.’ 

“Ah, okay, hello Basilio, drink thief. My name’s Xiao Chen.” Xiao decided to give Basilio a plate of Xiǎolóngbāo and made himself another drink. Basilio looked at the plate confused as to how to eat it before shrugging cleaning his hands with his gourd of water and picking up a dumpling with his bare hands and eating it in one go.

Xiao watched Basilio’s expression carefully, grinning in satisfaction as Basilio’s eyes widened in surprise. He gulped it down, chewing thoroughly before swallowing it one final time. Xiao managed to move his plate out of the wave as Basilio invaded his privacy, holding his free hand and gushing about the soup that was inside the wrapper.

“I’ve never realized that there was soup inside! It flooded my tongue and enhanced the meat and other flavors.” Basilio moved back to his original spot, oblivious to Xiao’s flushed cheeks. 

“Glad to know that you like it! I was worried that it might have been a bit too different to enjoy.” Basilio scoffed, shaking his head.

“Different is good, don’t you know? Being scared of difference is cowardice and complicit ignorance.” He declared solemnly before switching his tone of voice to that of cheerful intonation. “Besides as a porter, I experience a lot of things that might be considered ‘different’ so I’ve grown used to it as some might say.”

They finished their meal in comfortable silence, Basilio helping Xiao clean up and receiving a pack of Buchi leftovers as thanks. Once everything was packed, Basilio offered to travel with him up to the capital which Xiao generously accepted.